Canada fires hit rarely affected places – 6/12/2023 – World

When Liz Gouari was making plans to move from Africa and live with her husband in a rural area in northern Quebec, he promised her that Canada was a peaceful country.

But on Wednesday, they were among dozens of people in shock at an evacuation center after the entire population of the town where they lived was forced to flee a raging bushfire.

The fire advanced and reached their town, Chibougamau, one of several Canadian communities affected by an outbreak of wildfires whose smoke darkened the skies over large areas of North America and forced millions of people to stay indoors to escape the terrible quality of the air.

Growing up in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Gouari and her husband, Rey Steve Mabiala, said they were used to evacuations of all kinds — Mabiala once hid in a rainforest to escape fighting — and the way floods and droughts worsened. caused by the climate crisis are causing large displacements in Africa.

“In Africa, there are a lot of climate refugees, but I never thought I would become one in Canada,” said Mabiala, 42, who arrived in Canada in 2018. Gouari, 39, joined her last month after he got permanent residence in the country and sponsor her entry into the country.

With three months to go before the end of Canada’s wildfire season, the fire has already devastated more than ten times the number of hectares burned at this time last year. The extent and intensity of the fire is believed to be linked to the drought and heat caused by the climate crisis.

There are forest fires burning in every province and territory in Canada except the province of Prince Edward Island and the northern territory of Nunavit, situated above the tree line, where the temperature is too low for trees to survive.

“My wife keeps asking me, ‘How is this possible?’ empty, I could only mumble that I was shocked.

The outbreak of wildfires has hit not only Western Canada’s provinces, which are traditionally prone to fires, but also eastern parts of the country, such as Quebec, where it is rare for so many fires to occur simultaneously and whose residents have little experience leaving their homes. due to this.

Of the more than 400 fires currently burning in the country, more than a third are in Québec, which has already had the worst wildfire season in its history. “This year has been truly exceptional,” said Josee Poitras, a spokeswoman for the Quebec forest fire prevention agency.

As temperatures rise even in extremely cold Canadian regions, the heat and low humidity in the air are making trees drier, said Tanzina Mohsin, professor of physical and environmental sciences at the University of Toronto. “We are facing unprecedented events, including droughts, wildfires and heat waves, and there will be more, particularly wildfires.”

The fires in Québec were started last week by a single lightning bolt that struck near Val-d’Or, 320 km southwest of Chibougamau, following an unusually dry spring, Poitras said. “In one day we received 200 alerts from people saying they had seen smoke. This has resulted in more than 100 fires, which are gradually spreading.”

In Chibougamau, a town of 7,500 people 700 km north of Montreal by road, authorities issued an evacuation order on Tuesday night, just hours after it was announced that a fire barrier would contain the flames. But with the flames only 25km away and advancing faster, township residents jumped into vehicles and started heading south.

Many of them reached Roberval, 140 kilometers southeast of Chibougamau. A trip that usually takes two hours to cover took two or three times as long, due to the large number of cars and trailers making their way slowly along the highway in the middle of the night.

“I’ve lived in Chibougamau for over 40 years and I’ve never been through a situation like this,” said Francis Côté, 71, who was sheltering with others in a sports hall in Roberval. “It’s the first time in my life that I’ve been forced to leave my home because of a fire.”

It was the first time that the entire population of Chibougamau had to leave the city due to fires, but residents of parts of the city had to leave in 2005.

According to authorities, a combination of factors was responsible for the spread of fires in the city area. Freezing rain that turned to ice on the trees, causing branches to bend under the weight, littered the forest floor with broken branches that easily caught fire. The ground was drier than usual because the snow melted earlier than usual and there was little rain in the spring.

City that was born due to the mining and timber industry, Chibougamau is one of the few names that appear prominently in the vast and sparsely populated regions of northern Québec. For many in the province, it is a mysterious place that evokes distance and extreme cold.

But Chibougamau is also being affected by the effects of global warming. Long-time residents of the town said their community had been undergoing changes for years before the evacuation.

Since retiring from his mining job ten years ago, Côté has managed an outdoor ice-skating rink. The fact that there are fewer months with sub-zero temperatures has shortened the skating season, and the erratic temperature makes it difficult to maintain a smooth icy surface.

“This year there was a thaw in January,” he said. “The ice melted. I had to start over. It took a week for the ice to be rebuilt. We can clearly see that it is global warming that is impacting us more and more. With each passing year, it gets worse.”